Oregon, Wisconsin Take Traditional Rose Bowl in Futuristic Direction

The 98th Rose Bowl Game wasn’t your daddy’s Big Ten/Pac-12 clash. From the onset with Oregon’s futuristic helmets and each offense combining to eviscerate Rose Bowl records, UO-Wisconsin was a departure from tradition. But boy, it sure was grand.

Chip Kelly got that elusive marquee win over an out-of-conference foe. His most prominent non-conference victory previously was Utah in 2009, and against ranked foes with time to game plan for his Ducks, he was 0-4. Besting Wisconsin is a big step toward establishing Oregon as more than a novelty, flourishing over a weak conference with gimmicks and tricks and various other smoke-and-mirrors.

Ironically enough in a game that set the Rose Bowl record for combined points, the Ducks won with timely defensive plays. It felt early on as if the Rose Bowl would become the Alamo Bowl Redux. Shootouts are exciting, but like anything else in life, points are great — in moderation. Washington and Baylor lowered the bar for defenses, their offenses scoring so quick as to threaten viewers with seizures.

UW and UO needed time to feel one another out. For most teams, that means punts throughout the opening moments. With offenses as prolific as the Ducks’ and Badgers’, circling the ring meant throwing touchdowns as light jabs. The true haymakers were forced turnovers and punts.

The bad from this game is likely to get heavy play in the coming days of analysis. First and foremost is Bret Bielema’s clock management that culminated in Russell Wilson’s anti-climatic spike to end the game.

Wisconsin was out of timeouts, the result of prior — pardner the language but its appropriate — piss-poor clock recognition, and had moved into Oregon territory with ease. Barring the two seconds it required UW to get set, snap, and Wilson to spike, the Badgers had the Duck defense reeling back into the ropes. Why not throw the big uppercut to the end zone?

Likewise, that UW had exhausted all its timeouts at that juncture was the result of a misconceived replay challenge. Kirk Herbstreit wondered aloud if Bielema’s challenge was prompted by the boisterous reaction of UW faithful, seeing D’Anthony Thomas step onto the goal line and hang the football just over the imaginary plane from turf-to-sky. That’s highly unlikely. No conference championship-winning coach is going to allow throngs of fans who had spent the previous six hours tailgaiting with no shortage of Milwaukee’s Best in their system decide his challenges.

But someone had to have given Bielema some bad information. That was another important theme of the second half from the replay booth.

Jared Abbrederis fumbled, in-bounds, no question. But was UO defender Michael Clay in control of the ball while in-bounds? Social media of the call was split. I tend to lean towards no.

Nevertheless, UO rose up when it needed it. It became abundantly clear with 56 points scored in the first half that the team that got a remarkable defensive play its way going to come out the victor. It wasn’t simply one defensive play that did it for Oregon — the Ducks held Wisconsin to just 10 second half points, and none in the fourth quarter, after all. But one play was a decided momentum shift.

The defense coming through with the offense producing was huge for Oregon, and not just in the context of the 2012 Rose Bowl Game. Popular opinion is that Kelly’s quick-strike offense is ahead of its time. Wisconsin was different in formations and schemes, but the Badgers employed a like mindset of piling points on its opposition, something rarely seen in the history of the Big Ten. It worked for UW. It has worked for UO in three straight seasons in the Pac-12. And today, it worked on a national level.

With two decidedly defensive teams employing more traditional offenses playing for the BCS Championship a week from tonight, such a suggestion may be far fetched. But in the most traditionally rich game on the college football docket every year, we may have witnessed the future of college football.